


Mayhap You'll Never See Such Another

by JohnAmendAll



Category: British Telecom Share Offer (1993 Mel Smith), Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-22
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Morose finds a professor. Just not the professor he's looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mayhap You'll Never See Such Another

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you cross two parody series.
> 
> Inspector Morose was played by Mel Smith in a series of advertisements in the early 1990s.
> 
> "Professor X" is the programme that people in the Whoniverse watch on Saturday nights instead of "Doctor Who"; its hero travels through time and space in a pillar box called the TASID (because he got it from a man called Sid). In the New Adventure "No Future", we get to meet one incarnation of the Professor, who seems to have been portrayed by Frankie Howerd. For the casting of Julian Clary as the seventh Professor, I am indebted to the now-defunct Professor X Programme Guide website.

Balmoral Drive is a pleasant, tree-lined street in North Oxford, its massive Victorian houses appearing (at first sight) to present a stolid indifference to time and change. A passer-by, not stopping to examine the towering buildings closely, might form the impression that they were all still occupied by whiskered Victorian dons, with their submissive wives and their retinues of servants. A more attentive tourist, or one who walked more slowly, would notice the brass plates (and, sadly, the more recent plastic signs) stating that some towering red-brick structure had been claimed by this Institute or that Faculty; they would also note the subdivision of others into flats. Indeed, Inspector Morose himself has for many years occupied a commodious bachelor apartment in one such house, not far away.

On this day, however, neither Morose nor the ever-industrious Sergeant Wallace was in the mood to stop and take details of architecture. Their task was to find a man; and though it seemed unlikely that he had come this way, they had no other leads to go on. Wallace had proposed, seriatim, house-to-house inquiries, advertisements in the local newspapers, and bulletins on television and radio stations. Morose, however, had with his usual intuitive brilliance rejected all these approaches in favour of wandering the more salubrious byways of the city, discoursing on bawdy seventeenth- century poetry and making prolonged stops at every tavern they encountered. Though he would have denied it strenuously, the cumulative effect of these visits had perhaps made his gait a trifle less steady than the Platonic ideal: Wallace certainly would have agreed that this was the reason his superior officer managed to bump into a pillar box with sufficient force to knock him to the pavement.

"Get over here and help me up!" snapped Morose the moment he had regained enough breath to speak.

Wallace lost no time in complying. He well knew that in investigations such as this, his would be the responsibility for any activity involving the merest hint of physical exertion or routine police work - work which he uncomplainingly did to the best of his ability, for to him it was reward enough to be working on a case with the widely-proclaimed 'greatest detective in Oxford'.

Even when the Inspector had staggered to his feet, his attention was still focused on the door of the pillar box. For some five minutes he glared at the list of collection times, his brow furrowed with concentration.

"Wallace," he remarked, "Tell me what you make of this."

Wallace, familiar with his role as Glaucon to the Inspector's Socrates, knew how such a conversation should start.

"It's a pillar box, sir," said he.

"The **notice** , Wallace. Strikes you as pretty odd, doesn't it?"

"Well, I dunno, sir."

"Come on, come on. Look at the last two collection times."

"5:20pm and 5:45pm, sir."

"A bit close together, wouldn't you say, for a quiet residential street?"

"I suppose so, sir."

"And so what do you deduce...?"

"That this pillar box wasn't here yesterday, sir."

Morose stared at Wallace open-mouthed.

"How in the **world** , Wallace, do you draw such a ludicrously incorrect conclusion? You're supposed to say 'Dunno, sir', not try to convince me you're clinically insane!"

"Well, sir, you can see they've had the pavement up outside number 41 to fix the telephones or something, and there's muddy footprints all over everywhere. But look at this bloke's footprints. He walks straight from the house to his van or whatever, and you can see his marks all the way. But look here." He pointed at the base of the pillar box. "That print's so close it's almost under it - and that's the **right** foot. He couldn't have got his left foot past. And I know it must have been done yesterday, because it rained yesterday morning and that would have washed away the marks."

Morose, as was his habit on the rare occasions when his intuition led him astray, made to change the subject.

"Not bad deductive work, Wallace." he grudgingly admitted. "But it doesn't get us any nearer to finding the Professor."

"Well now," a reedy voice remarked from behind them, "Maybe it's your lucky day today."

The detective duo turned slowly, and subjected the new arrival to their scrutiny. He was a tall man, and by the look of his figure the word 'willowy' had been chosen with him specifically in mind. His hair was blond, cut short and expertly styled; his face young and sensitive, the lips carefully picked out with lipstick. In dress he resembled rather the Regency dandy, with a riding coat, knee-britches and polished leather boots. He flourished a slender ebony cane, which was incongruously topped with a plastic handle, electric blue in colour and shaped like the letter X. The same motif was repeated on the man's collar and cuffs. Pinned to his jacket was a green carnation, and the whole impression was accentuated by the sickly scent of costly cologne.

"And who might you be?" demanded Morose.

"Close, darling, but no cigar. But didn't I hear you tell your rather dishy friend that you were looking for a professor?"

"Well?"

"I'm **the** Professor — accept no substitutes. You can't do any better than me. Satisfaction fully guaranteed, or your money back."

Morose scowled.

"Spare me the cheap innuendos," he replied, trying not to grit his teeth.

The Professor — if he was one — affected shock. "I assure you, my very dear man, these are extremely expensive innuendos," he murmured. "I have been accused of many things, including being all things to all men (and what a lot of fun that was), but skimping on the provison of elegantly crafted chat-up lines has never before been levelled at me, even by my worst enemies."

Wallace, seeing Morose's temper worsening, attempted to divert the conversation.

"No, sir, you're far too young to match the description we've had. Our man's probably middle-aged. You've not seen anyone suspicious round here?"

"Oh dear. How disheartening it is when even the police prefer age and experience to youthful charm and openness — though I assure you I'm neither as young nor as innocent as I may seem. No, I'm sure you're both very lovely people and I'd do anything in my power to help you, but you're the only human beings I've seen in this part of town all day. Perhaps everyone else has been replaced with young, handsome, well-greased android replicas."

"I don't think so, sir. More likely everyone's indoors watching the football."

"Ah, that might be it. A delightful game, to be sure, if not to everybody's taste. But unless there's any other way in which I can assist you..." He fluttered his eyelashes at the two policemen.

"No, there most certainly is not," replied Morose firmly. "Come along, Wallace. If I remember rightly, it's not far till we reach the Coach and Horses."

They had walked about twenty yards further down the road before Wallace cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. The mysterious pillar box was still there, but of the gaily-dressed young man who had accosted them there was no sign. Before he had a chance to mention this, Morose had begun to speak.

"Of all the unsatisfactory people I ever met —" he began, but got no further. The quiet city street suddenly resounded with a raucous groaning, wheezing sound. Both men spun round at once. Before their eyes, the pillar box faded away into empty air.


End file.
